


Love Cannot Fill the Thickened Lung

by maybemalapert (laconicisms)



Series: A Floating Spar to Men That Sink [4]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: 2x02 AU, F/M, Lucifer's parents' A+ parenting, Penelope Decker's A+ parenting, discussion of child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 11:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11057805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laconicisms/pseuds/maybemalapert
Summary: It's been several weeks since Chloe learned who Lucifer really was and she's coping as well as she can. The arrival of Lucifer's mother puts them both under stress as they deal with old memories and grievances.





	Love Cannot Fill the Thickened Lung

**Author's Note:**

> All the love to geckoholic for being a wonderful beta. <3

_"Abandon your child in a time of need and it won't trust you in the future."_

While on their way to the crime scene, Lucifer's words kept going round in her head when they weren't being chased out by the bombshell he'd dropped on her shortly after. His mother had been found -- or had found him, to be exact -- and the dead body in _Hotel Gleam_ might actually be her handiwork. 

_"You're being a bad mother."_.

He was projecting his own issues again. Not on the case, this time, but on her argument with Trixie. Chloe frowned at the car in front of them. He hadn't implied his mother was a bad person -- well, not in that conversation -- but he had said his mother had abandoned him during their last case.

Add to this how he'd kept insisting she'd come to LA to take revenge on him for keeping her locked up in hell, and no. Surely, his mother hadn't… taken his father's side? 

_Chri-- Hell._

Chloe's grip on the steering wheel tightened and she had to fight to relax her muscles. Maybe, it had been something else. She should not assume things.

Normally, Chloe didn't like to pry, didn't want others to pry into her own business, either. ( _"Family has no secrets before each other, Chloe."_ ) But. But he'd butted into _her_ business, and fair was fair. Plus, if he didn't want to answer, he didn't need to. So.

"You're angry at your mother," she ventured into the unnatural silence of the car. Normally, Lucifer was either talking her ear off or would fiddle with the stereo. Today, though, he was a silent, grouchy presence at her side.

"Whatever gave it away?" he replied, chuckling darkly.

She ignored the rhetorical question, choosing to pursue a more interesting line of questioning. "Why? I mean, what did she do exactly?"

"Oh, nothing," he said, tone vaguely ironic. "Nothing at all."

Chloe blinked in surprise. "Nothing?"

"Mhm. While Dad was throwing his fit, _casting me into hell_ , she did exactly that: zilch."

It had been. Shit. "Okay, that's… wow." Chloe tried to imagine standing idly by as Dan threw Trixie out of the house -- or worse.

Much worse.

_Not happening. Also, so not the same thing as not buying her a doll, geez._

But how to make him see that? Chloe started wracking her brain for a bit, before finally hitting on something that might work. Hopefully.

"Okay, so," she began. "I've turned you down several times for sex--"

"Which is _your_ loss, Detective, believe me. Not mine."

"-- something you clearly--"

"Hold on a moment. Is this going where I think it's going? Because if so, the answer is yes, and I would be willing to postpone our investigation into my mother's heinous crimes for--"

"No, it is not going there." She ignored the way her heart gave a jump at the thought of him still being interested despite what had happened several weeks ago and how he still refused to acknowledge that her _words_ had hurt him.

He sighed. "Pity."

"You want to sleep with me and I've turned you down," she began again. "I didn't give you what you wanted. Is that the same as hell?"

"Of course, not!" Lucifer exclaimed. "But you're also not my mother."

_So glad you noticed._

"Well, I guess not getting a doll is like being in hell then."

"No, that's--" Lucifer grit out, then changed tack. "Your mother clearly gave you everything you wished."

Chloe couldn't hold back a guffaw at that. 

"What, she didn't?" Lucifer seemed momentarily stumped, and Chloe remembered that he was a fan of her mom's movies. 

"My mother..." _Forgot to give me lunch money so many times, my classmates thought we were poor and when I started to remind her she got irritated_. And pressed a bunch of bills into six-year-old Chloe's hand, telling her that should be enough till Halloween.

It hadn't been, or it had but Chloe had had no experience with money and ended up buying other things besides lunch with it. And then been too ashamed to tell either of her parents and went hungry at school again before deciding to raid the fridge and pack her own lunch. (Memorably, once, a whole glass of pickles and nothing else).

Then there were the many, many times she'd been at Mrs Cartwright's house for her piano lessons and her mother completely forgot that she was there. Waiting, mortified, while other students came and went until either Mrs Cartwright got ahold of her mother or dad came home and found her missing. After the first few times, he even stopped panicking and just called the piano teacher.

_Your mom's a bit flighty. Creative people usually are. Don't take it to heart, monkey._

Yes, her mother had given her all kinds of things, clothes, toys, but what Chloe had really yearned for -- even if she hadn't been able to articulate it back then -- had been to know that her mother… cared about what _Chloe_ wanted, and needed. 

_She kept saying how I was their miracle child. How they'd wished and prayed to have me. But it always felt like mom just liked the idea of a child, without the reality that comes with raising one._

Like a kid asking for a puppy for Christmas and then leaving it to someone else to feed it and take it for walkies.

Chloe held the words back. Her mother had her fair share of flaws, but she wasn't the type of monster the _goddess of creation_ seemed to be. Plus, bursting Lucifer's bubble about Penelope Decker didn't seem worth the effort it would take to convince him, especially since she wasn't _evil_.

_Just self-obsessed; jutting out her bottom lip and pouting when the whole world refuses to revolve around her. Throwing temper tantrums like a child when she needs to show the least bit of responsibility._

But Chloe also wasn't going to lie, either, so she took a leaf out of Lucifer's book and just didn't tell the whole truth.

"I didn't get everything I wanted."

"Then you should know how it feels!"

"There is a difference between not giving your child everything because it's good for them, and not giving them something because you're being a selfish--"

She cut herself off, took a deep breath. 

"I did not buy Trixie the doll, because first of all, I don't have the kind of money to randomly spend on 200$ dolls, but leaving that aside--"

"Pfft, I'd have bought it for her if you'd asked."

He what now?

"Leaving that aside," she repeated firmly, putting her foot on the brake pedal as they neared a red light, "she needs to learn how to handle disappointment. Small disappointments," she emphasized when he opened his mouth to object. "I'm not talking about abandoning her in hell, but if she doesn't develop the skills to cope when something doesn't go her way," … she'd become a self-obsessed tyrant... "it will hit her twice as hard when something like that does happen."

"Then don't let it happen!"

 _I am not god, Lucifer._ It was at the tip of her tongue, but she didn't say it. However, the thought did make her realize that Lucifer might have gotten everything he wished until he'd rebelled. Years of that, millennia probably. He had most likely not had the tools to deal with disappointment when it happened. 

_Actually, he still doesn't._

"I cannot control everything that happens in her life. Even if I could somehow do that until she's 18 and moving out to college, it'll just be even worse for her when she doesn't get into the one she wants, or her crush turns her down, or, or _something_."

She risked a quick glance at him before turning her attention back to the road. He'd crossed his arms over his chest -- body language all but screaming defensiveness -- but his lips were pursed as if he were considering her words.

"Look," she finally said, "doing what's best for your child… doesn't always make them happy."

He was silent for several minutes, long enough for them to arrive at the hotel and for her to park the cruiser. Just before they got out, he finally let out a sigh. 

"Well, I suppose you do indeed do everything for your spawn, usually."

Not quite a ringing endorsement of her actions, but she'd take it. Small steps.

\--

The weeks _after_ had been odd. She kept expecting things to be different now, somehow, and was surprised each time when they weren't. Driving her car in LA traffic? Still the same. Coming home and reading a bedtime story to her daughter? Ditto. Doing paperwork at the precinct? Still as mind-numbingly boring as ever.

Investigating crimes with Lucifer at her side? Absolutely no difference at all, aside from finding herself staring at him more often than before. He noticed, of course, but never called her on it. Didn't even make any remarks about checking him out either, though he had plenty lewd comments otherwise. Business as usual, as it were, with her trying to stick to protocol and him being outrageous and somehow getting results. Breaking into song among a group of grieving high society ladies -- and gents -- _seriously_. It was just so inappropriate, so thoughtless, so… Lucifer. 

Still, regaining her equilibrium had been rough and was an ongoing process, to be honest. 

It wasn't just that her partner was literally the devil -- and having to use the word 'just' in this sentence made her laugh every time she thought it -- there was also a lot of other shit piling up, the simplest of which was the argument with her mother, which thankfully was looking like it would blow over in time, though probably hampered by the fact that she didn't know if she wanted things to just blow over. She felt like she was just making an effort because she couldn't stand to be stretched into so many directions. _And because you do love your mother even if she was and still is terrible at being one. Just admit, Chloe._

Things would be a lot easier if she didn't.

Regardless, they'd already talked on the phone once without either of them hanging up in the middle, so. Progress.

Then there was Lucifer's problem with _his_ parental units. Technically, she wasn't involved in that unless she wanted to be. Like when she'd hunted down a list of people who'd somehow survived injuries they might have died from, so that Lucifer and Amenadiel, the _angel_ , could search for their mother.

Who had escaped hell as Lucifer had learned when he died while trying to help her against Malcolm, who'd kidnapped Trixie to get the money she'd taken off him after he had tried to frame Lucifer for murder after actually breaking into the penthouse to kill him and then chickening out when Lucifer had gambled on her not being close enough to give him a bout of temporary mortality and revealing that Amenadiel, who'd resurrected that sleazy douchebag in the first place, couldn't kill a human.

Hell, her head hurt just thinking about it, and she also just _really wanted to kick Amenadiel in the balls_ for endangering her, her colleagues, Lucifer, _and her daughter._ But apparently her mortality inducing powers or whatever didn't work on him. Damn. 

Not that that was necessarily a hindrance to at least attempting to get a good kick in. In trying to deal with everything, she'd come to the conclusion that it was best to simply ignore the fact that she was dealing with beings older than time itself and try to treat them like normal people who were simply… odder than what was normal for LA. Not very hard during the moments when they behaved like preschoolers. At one point when she'd come by Lux to leave another list of potential host bodies, Lucifer and Amenadiel were caught in a blink-first-and-lose staring contest. She'd exchanged a look with Mazikeen over the bar and they'd had a moment of perfect woman-to-demon-bartender understanding. 

(In between, itching at her like a scratchy label at the back of her shirt, was the feeling that she had left things unfinished between Lucifer and herself. Well, they had been, but it was weeks later and she still very randomly got the urge to hug him or hold him. It happened at the most inopportune moments, too, like when they were standing next to the body of a girl sacrificed in a satanic ritual.)

Accepting what Lucifer was had certainly been made easier because of his mostly unchanged behaviour. What really eased her mind about it had been something else, though.

He'd died. For her and Trixie. Not just died, but gone to hell, fully expecting, apparently, that he would be stuck down there. Certainly, being the devil, it wouldn't have been as… bad for him as for someone else, but still.

And it seemed that even if her brain hadn't been fully on board with accepting him for what he was, yet, her heart definitely had been. The moment the shot had rung out, it had stopped, and she'd felt as if her world was taking a sudden downward tilt into darkness, only to be flooded with light when she, impossibly, heard his voice again.

Maybe shooting Malcolm dead had not been necessary, but her heart did not regret it.

Chloe herself felt guilty about not feeling guilty. It was a very strange thing to feel, and it kept her up at night -- then again, Trixie's nightmares also kept her awake at night -- because what did it say about her if she could end a life and not regret it at all? And now that she knew that the afterlife was very real… did that mean she'd end up in hell?

And who ended up in heaven or hell, anyway? How was it determined? Was the Bible right? And what about non-Christians? What _about_ non-Christian religions? If god existed and if he had a wife -- someone Chloe had never heard about before -- did the Hindu gods exist, too? The Shinto gods? What about the gods of the Ancient Egyptians? Or the Norse? Did Valhalla exist?

Did she even want to know the answers? Because she could get them, she was sure. She knew someone who could give them to her.

But… she might end up getting answers she didn't want to hear, and she wasn't sure what was worse: not knowing or knowing for sure.

Having a crisis of… unfaith -- what did you call it if you weren't doubting your faith but your lack of one? -- really didn't help considering what else was going on in her life. Like the mess with Dan, for one. Not so much that he'd killed someone because she really couldn't throw any stones since she'd killed the very same man. No, it was the betrayal. How he was complicit in the way she'd been treated by their colleagues. How he'd called her judgment into question, made her -- more than once -- consider that he might be right and she was seeing things that weren't there. Adding to that was a thought that continued to nag her: why had he even thought to follow her? He would have had no reason to unless he knew about Malcolm's shady dealings beforehand, and if he had known, why had he not said anything? The answer was obvious, but it was another one she didn't want to know at the moment. She couldn't deal with everything, with all of that, at once. It was too much. Angels, goddesses, her mother, the goddamn text message. (Should she stop swearing? Did it even count if she didn't say the words out loud?)

And then there were just the normal annoyances and problems in her life: a babysitter calling in sick at the last minute, a broken printer at work, finding herself stuck in traffic as class let out. Her colleagues treating her like a pariah or ducking their heads in shame whenever she was around -- sometimes it was even the same person doing both. Lucifer just being Lucifer and not talking about his feelings -- deliberately, she was sure, misunderstanding her when she brought up their scene again. Him not following protocol either, which made her want to put him over her knee again.

Okay, more honestly, she just wanted to top him again, no matter what he did or didn't do. 

And of course, her biggest annoyance at the moment: Lucifer being as subtle as a brick wall at the worst possible moment. 

"Or a screwdriver, perhaps?" Lucifer asked, not even bothering to really look at the body as Ella finished measuring the size of the stab wound.

Just, could he be more obvious about knowing more about this crime than he should?

"Huh. Yeah, could be. Good eye."

While Ella was turned away, Chloe threw her partner a Look. 

He raised his eyebrows in return before telling her to take a look at a pool of blood and then "finding" a phone in a bucket full of ice. Chloe barely resisted burying her face in her hands. Never a good idea with traces of a crime scene stuck to your gloves. 

Thankfully, Ella -- or anyone else -- didn't cotton on to how sketchy this whole thing really was nor seem overly bemused by Lucifer insisting a woman was the perpetrator of a violent crime.

"Try not to let on how much you know," she hissed in his ear while everyone else was distracted. "And don't let your feelings for your mother cloud your judgement."

He sniffed and, really, she might as well not have bothered. He kept insisting on his theory, arguing with her all the way back to the precinct and during the subsequent meeting where they were all putting their heads together. 

And it wasn't the only thing he brought back up.

"I still think you should buy her the doll, or I'll buy it and you can say it's from you," Lucifer said as they entered Ella's lab.

"I'm teaching her a lesson, Lucifer."

"You are not bribing my daughter!" Which was rich coming from Dan who had been bribing Trixie with chocolate cake for who knew how long. Chloe decided to ignore him, as did Lucifer.

"Yes, but surely she has learned that lesson already. You can forgive her now, can't you?"

"It's not about forgiveness. And it would undermine my point if I turned around and gave her what she tried to manipulate me into only _a couple of hours_ after she did so." 

"So, tomorrow then."

Chloe sighed. "No. Just, I hate being manipulated, okay?" She turned slightly and very pointedly did not look at Dan. "Family shouldn't do that to each other."

"Look, Chloe. I said I was sorry--"

She whirled around. "I wasn't talking to you or about you, Dan." Liar, liar, and he knew it, too, judging by the wince. 

Good.

"So, about that body," Ella said loudly, waving a photograph in their faces. "She's a maid at the hotel."

Right, the body, which was the priority here. Her personal problems had to take a backseat. Chloe sent a silent apology to the dead woman -- and man -- and picked up one of the photographs spread over the table. 

Going by what Ella had uncovered, it looked like the maid had been at the wrong place at the wrong time and the couple had been the real target. Lucifer insisted that the woman -- his mother, though he didn't say so in Ella's and Dan's presence -- must have been the perpetrator.

Chloe didn't know what to think. It could have been her, sure, especially if she was as evil as Lucifer said. But it could also have been someone else, and if it was they still needed to catch the killer. It would really help if they knew the name of the woman whose body was being used by Lucifer's mother.

"Anything on the cell phone?" she asked.

"Uh, no. Water and phones, bad news."

Damn, so much for that.

"But I did get a serial number off of it, so I know who bought it at least. Richards and Wheeler. High-end law firm in Beverly Hills."

 _She's new_ , Chloe reminded herself, trying to keep her temper in check. She couldn't quite keep the sarcasm out of her voice, though. "Next time, you know, if you want. Just lead with that."

"Uh-huh."

"Okay, boss," Dan suddenly piped up. "Where do you want me?"

 _Out of sight and out of mind preferably_ , Chloe thought, gritting her teeth at Dan's insouciant grin. "I'm not your boss."

"You kind of are, though. It's okay, Chloe. I've accepted my demotion like a big boy," he argued, face settling into an expression that was less police-officer-who-seriously-fucked-up and more little-boy-caught-with-his-hand-in-the-cookie-jar.

She knew he meant her to find it cute. She very much didn't.

"And besides," he continued when she didn't react, "it's kind of hot when you give me orders."

Oh for fuck's sake, he hadn't just brought up their bedroom activities in front of their coworkers. She expected that kind of behavior from Lucifer, who was now looking between them with a thoughtful frown on his face, not from someone on the force who _knew_ it would be another thing everyone else would look down on her for. 

"Sorry. Old habits."

Like hell. She cast a quick glance at Ella who was pretending to be busy picking up the photos. 

"Clearly, you weren't following them well enough for her to consider taking you back to her bed," Lucifer taunted.

Oh, no.

"At least I've _been_ in her bed."

No, no, and nope. If he wasn't trying to win any points with her, this was not the way to do it. She was not a bone to be fought over by two would-be alpha males. She stomped on Lucifer's foot as he opened his mouth to reply, earning herself a curse and an indignant "Detective!" -- tough fucking luck -- and glared at Dan.

"Go take a look at missing persons." Futile, because the missing woman's body had already turned up, but she couldn't exactly say that. "Lucifer and I will go to the law firm."

\--

The law firm gave them a name -- Charlotte Richards -- and pointed them towards Mrs. Richards' husband who hadn't really been much help in terms of trying to figure out who'd killed his wife. Lucifer's outrage at Mr. Richard's wardrobe, on the other hand, had been a great help.

_How does he even do that?_

There had been no reason to go snooping through the closet, yet Lucifer had and it had given them their best lead. 

"Looks like your mother may have been telling the truth," she commented quietly as they were waiting for Dan to hear back from his FBI contact. 

"I wouldn't place any bets on it yet, Detective."

She should have, because she totally could have collected on it, as it turned out.

After hearing about the cartel connection, they'd hightailed it to Lux, only to find that Lucifer's mother had gotten the better of Mazikeen and promptly vanished, armed with a hot body, a hot outfit and a corporate credit card. Of course, then they'd ended up chasing a false lead and only just managed to catch up with Charlotte Richard's body in time to keep it from being murdered a second time. 

She had to think of the body as an it, because the person inside that form, the person staring at her across the parking lot as she shoved a cuffed and squirming Liam Pickering into her cruiser, was not Charlotte Richards. 

Chloe walked back over to them, stepping around the shopping cart full of cheese -- what the hell -- and finally coming to stand before her partner and his mother, feeling inexplicably nervous.

_Of course, you're nervous. That is a literal goddess._

"So, are you going to introduce me?"

Lucifer heaved a sigh. "Mum, this is Detective Decker, my partner in crime fighting and punishing the guilty. Detective, this is my mother."

"Partner?" Charlotte Richard's body said with a hint of disdain just as Lucifer added, "Oh, that reminds me" and _promptly stabbed her in the arm_.

After the initial spike of adrenaline at the sight -- _Lucifer, what the hell_ \-- Chloe's pulse settled and... She wasn't even surprised anymore. 

Couldn't he just act normal for once.

"What did you do that for?" his mother asked.

"That pool of blood at the hotel needs to be explained somehow," Lucifer replied, nodding towards the squad cars coming towards them. Dan was in one of them, she knew, so yeah. It made sense.

Still, he'd clearly been projecting when he'd called Mazikeen stab-happy. 

"Oh, you little--" his mother began, clutching her arm and glaring. 

"Devil?" He was smirking, and in a way, Chloe understood. His mother had treated him like shit and he was exacting a little revenge while being entirely pragmatic.

Still, stab-happy. Chloe eyed the woman's arm. Blood was running past her fingers, dripping to the ground. Looked like the wound wasn't going to magically heal any time soon. It supported Lucifer's opinion that his mother was mortal at the moment. Or the body was, anyway. "We better bandage this," Chloe said with a sigh, a sense of deja-vu settling over her as she walked back to her cruiser to get the first aid kit.

She foresaw a lot more headaches coming her way until the goddess was back in hell.

\--

Her ringtone sounded while she was filling up the dishwasher. Grabbing the towel to dry her hands, Chloe trudged over to to the kitchen counter where she'd left her phone. She hoped it wasn't the precinct. The day had been exhausting, emotionally more than physically, and now that Trixie was tugged into bed -- without a bedtime story this time since she'd turned her back towards the door the moment Chloe had come in and refused to acknowledge her mother's existence -- she was looking forward to settling herself in front of the TV and turning into a zombie.

The number on the screen wasn't one she recognized. Fighting down the apprehension curling in her stomach, Chloe answered the call.

"Hello?"

"Detective."

"Lucifer." Why would he call her? And since when did he have a phone? "Is everything alright?"

The line was silent for a moment, then: "Could you let me in?" It was followed by a rap on the door a second later.

Chloe stared, perplexed. Lucifer had never needed an invitation to barge in on her before. "Yeah, one moment."

She opened the door, then stepped aside to let him in. His gait was heavy as he walked past her, none of the bounce that could usually be found in his step. He stopped short just after a couple of feet, looking around as if he had lost something and was trying to find it.

Looking… unsure. 

Definitely something wrong.

He finally turned a bit and fixed his gaze on her as if she'd hidden whatever he'd lost track off. No, not hidden. It wasn't accusatory. 

More like he wanted her to help find it. Like he thought she had the _power_ to find it.

Chloe closed the door and walked over to the couch, aware of how his eyes followed her. 

Okay. Okay, then.

She could do this, take the reins from his hands as he so clearly wanted. Needed.

As long as she trod carefully, it would be alright.

"Come sit with me," she ordered, patting the place beside her. His eyes snapped towards her hand, before he closed them briefly and shook his head as if shooing away a fly -- or an unwanted thought. Then he shuffled over, sitting a bit further away than she'd have preferred, but still close enough for her to touch. Still watching her. Tense, like a virgin on her wedding night.

She was never going to tell him she'd thought that.

"How's the club going?" she asked. 

His expression became nonplussed. "Fine?"

She nodded. What else was safe to say? She wanted to put him at ease, not make him feel like she was mocking him. 

_Can't ask him about his family. Mazikeen's out, too, at the moment. I don't think they've made up, yet._ "How's Dr. Martin?"

His face turned even more bewildered. "The same as always, I believe. Ah, and how is young Beatrice?"

Okay, not where she'd meant this conversation to go, but maybe if she told him, he'd open up?

"Angry, upset. Sulking." She leaned back a little and sighed. "Ignoring me for the moment."

"It bothers you?"

"Of course, it does. I don't like being at odds with the people I love."

"But you still think it's what's best for her?" he pressed, voice intense, gaze fixed on her so much now that she felt like he was trying to look into her soul. 

If whatever had happened to bring him to her door didn't have anything to do with his mother, she was the queen of China.

_What did she do? What did she say?_

Had she tried selling her actions as being what was best for her son?

"In this case, yes" Chloe stressed."But not everything parents do that makes their kids unhappy is for their children's benefit. Sometimes it's just shitty--" --or abusive-- "-- behavior."

"How do… how does the child know which is which?"

Wasn't that just the question.

Fortunately -- or, well, not fortunately, but anyway -- it was something she had thought about, had read articles and blog entries on, for years. Never gone to a therapist, and Dr. Martin was really better equipped to handle this, but she wasn't here right now. "It takes a while, when it's not," she replied and shoved all the thoughts and memories clamoring for her attention to the back of her mind. "You maybe feel that something's off, that something that happened is wrong somehow, or that your friends -- or, or siblings -- are treated different, but sometimes you don't figure out what was wrong about all of it until years later."

He went back to being silent. Thinking. She let him be, but did lean towards him to put her hand on his arm. He startled a little, then settled.

"Mum wants us to be a _family_ again."

Chloe almost choked on her own spit. "Do--" She cleared her throat. "Do you want that?" 

He let out a bark of laughter, dark and brittle. 

There was no way she could not hug him right now, so she pulled him into her. He startled, again, remained frozen and stiff against her for a few agonising seconds, like he couldn't quite believe what she was doing.

_Who hugs the devil?_

Her, apparently. 

When he finally relaxed, breathing in -- breathing her in -- and sighing as if the weight on his shoulders had just become a little bit lighter, she decided that she would shower him with as much affection as he would let her get away with tonight. 

Slowly, she pulled his head into her lap, a spark of worry going through her when he didn't try to make even a token attempt at innuendo. 

"She came to me," he murmured, and Chloe had to strain to hear him. "Bearing a pan full of cheesy noodles like some mid-fifties housewife." 

_Wait. She's still on Earth?_

She almost asked, but that question could wait for a while. Lucifer freely sharing information about something that bothered him was too rare to risk interrupting him. Instead, she started carding her fingers through his hair, carefully, soothingly.

"I think I'd have preferred it if she hadn't... She said that dad wanted to destroy me. And--" Chloe froze for a moment, prompting Lucifer to stop speaking, before she resumed running her fingers through his hair. Just. The more she heard about his parents, the worse everything seemed.

"She said that she begged him to cast me into hell instead."

_G-- Fuck._

This was not a matter of doing what was best for your child. No way.

But then, if it _were_ the only option… what an impossible decision for his mother, too.

_If it is true._

She frowned. The woman was a goddess. Shouldn't she have been able to put up more of a resistance?

How powerful was god?

_Not a question I ever thought I'd ask._

"Couldn't she have done anything else?"

Lucifer shrugged as much as his position would allow. He seemed to have spent all his words for the evening.

They remained like this for a while, Chloe thinking. Lucifer… probably trying not to think or feel at all. 

She should be more careful with what she wished for. She had wanted this, yes: Lucifer at her side -- or in her lap --, not running away from her for once, opening up to her instead. Yet, now that he was, her heart was aching for him because this wasn't something she could punch or shoot. Not the aftermath of a scene where she could sooth away the hurt by hugs and kisses. 

But, she was glad he came to her with this. Let his guard down around her.

 _He trusts me,_ she realized. _Like I trust him._

She could only hope she'd prove worthy of that trust.

\--

She woke the next morning to the sound and smell of sizzling sausage and the sun turning the insides of her eyelids red. A blanket had been spread over her at some point in the night, and she burrowed further underneath it, not yet willing to face the day. She was feeling… odd. No, not odd. Content. Happy even, as if the weight that had been bearing down on her the past couple of weeks had finally lifted.  
From the kitchen, Lucifer's voice carried over to her. "You should see if your mother is awake."

So Trixie was up and about, too.

"She has stopped snoring like an Albanian field wench."

Wait, what?

"I'll tell her you said that," Trixie lisped back at him. 

To Chloe's ears Lucifer's reply sounded bored. "Will you now?"

However, Trixie didn't seem to pick up on it. "Unless…" she said, drawing out the word, and dammit, Chloe needed to have another talk with her daughter about bribery and blackmail and how it was bad.

"Unless…?" Lucifer drawled in reply. Chloe was sure she knew what would be coming.

"We-ell, there's this doll I really, _really_ want."

Yep.

"I'm quite certain that I know which one it is, and…," he paused for a moment, and Chloe started mentally girding her loins for the argument that would follow when she'd _put a stop to this_. "I'm also certain that your mother doesn't want you to have it."

Chloe's eyes shot open. Holy shit, had he…? He had. A grin started to spread over her face. Trixie didn't say anything in reply, but Chloe could imagine the scowl on her face after getting thwarted.

"Furthermore," Lucifer began, "you shouldn't blackmail people--"

Chloe could barely believe what she was hearing. She was officially dreaming now. Or Lucifer had been replaced by a clone.

"--unless you know for sure that your leverage works. It's rather ineffective, otherwise."

Okay, maybe not.

"Now go and fetch your mother, spawn. The sausages are done."

"Fiiine," Trixie groused.

 _Small steps,_ Chloe thought again, closing her eyes and waiting for her daughter to come shake her awake. _But definitely heading the right way._

**Author's Note:**

> The next story might take a bit longer because it's giving me a lot of trouble. Lucifer very much doesn't want to _talk_ and he's dragging his feet.


End file.
